Date with History: September 16

The Mayflower sails, Hidalgo rings his bell, and the world agrees to fix the ozone layer.

One paperback for one calendar date: what happened on September 16, and who was born on it.

What happened on September 16

1620: The Mayflower Leaves Plymouth

After several false starts the Mayflower finally slipped its moorings with 102 passengers, roughly half religious Separatists and half ordinary colonists the Pilgrims called Strangers. Sixty-six miserable days later they made landfall at Cape Cod instead of Virginia, and spent the first winter aboard ship watching half their number die. On September 16 they were still full of the terrible optimism history would later call courage.

1987: The Montreal Protocol Is Signed

Two years after British scientists confirmed a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, the world agreed to phase out chlorofluorocarbons. It became the only UN treaty ever ratified by every country on Earth, 196 member states plus the European Union. The hole stopped growing, roughly two million skin cancer cases a year are prevented, and full recovery is projected for around 2070.

Famous birthdays on September 16

1925 — B.B. King
Played over 15,000 concerts, named every guitar Lucille, and taught the world how to bend a string.

1927 — Peter Falk
Lost an eye at three, turned it into a career, and made "just one more thing" a national reflex.

Nearby dates

September 15 · September 17 · All September dates

Part of Date with History, a 366-book collection with one book for every date of the year. 5″×8″ paperback, cream paper.

Historical selections are editorially researched. This is a date-specific book, not a personalized or custom-made product.